Would you rather?…

by Beth on August 20, 2010

Ever play that game?

Would you rather date Brad Pitt or George Clooney? (George!)

Would you rather be stuck in traffic for six hours with air conditioning or walk one half mile in scorching heat to get to your destination? (Walk it, baby. Burn calories, burn.)

Would you rather a pet spider or pet snake?

(I am terrified of spiders.)

Would you rather chicken pox or a broken pinky toe? (Broken toe. Wait. Hmmm. Chicken pox. Hmmm. Shoot. The toe.)

Would you rather be asked, “Why don’t you have kids?” from one stranger, once a week? Or would you rather your loved ones say nothing forever about your not having children as yet?

I don’t know which one is worse. Both suck. One is pure classless nosiness. The other is pity. I suppose? Perhaps one is pure helpfulness (maybe the person asking is a great R.E.) and the other, patience and respect from your loved one.

What would you rather and why?

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  • Sharon

    I’d rather my loved ones never say anything about our having children.

    It is far more painful and awkward for me to talk to my sister, parents, in-laws, and extended family members about our infertility than it is to field dumb-but-innocent comments from strangers or relative strangers.

    Truth be told, I am nearly at this point already. My father, stepmother, and mother no longer ask if/when we are going to have children, and my in-laws don’t either. (My sister reads my blog, so she is fully up-to-date on our situation.)

  • http://www.ivfgirl.com Beth

    I know. My family stopped asking, too. I think it was out of respect and not pity. Of course my MIL is asking when the sibling will be born now and admitted she and her friends lit all sorts of candles and prayed for me over the years. The friends? REALLY? Gawd.

    Far too may strangers or rather extended co-workers whom I saw maybe once or twice a year asked very bluntly and usually followed with a, “WHY NOT?!” after asking if I had kids…yet. It was really upsetting. One woman was hell. Absolute hell.

    What would I prefer? The quiet candle lighter MIL with her friends or the obnoxious once in awhile person…hmmmm….I choose neither but if I had to pick, it would be the latter. I can respond with sass to a person I am not emotionally attached to. Whereas my family will worry about me if I lose it on them.

    I think that is what I would choose? Not an easy one, is it?

    Sharon, btw, thanks for writing a response. Your blog is really great and I look forward to where you are going in your life. I do.

    Beth

  • Beth

    I know. My family stopped asking, too. I think it was out of respect and not pity. Of course my MIL is asking when the sibling will be born now and admitted she and her friends lit all sorts of candles and prayed for me over the years. The friends? REALLY? Gawd.

    Far too may strangers or rather extended co-workers whom I saw maybe once or twice a year asked very bluntly and usually followed with a, “WHY NOT?!” after asking if I had kids…yet. It was really upsetting. One woman was hell. Absolute hell.

    What would I prefer? The quiet candle lighter MIL with her friends or the obnoxious once in awhile person…hmmmm….I choose neither but if I had to pick, it would be the latter. I can respond with sass to a person I am not emotionally attached to. Whereas my family will worry about me if I lose it on them.

    I think that is what I would choose? Not an easy one, is it?

    Sharon, btw, thanks for writing a response. Your blog is really great and I look forward to where you are going in your life. I do.

    Beth

  • http://www.ivfgirl.com Beth Katz

    I know. My family stopped asking, too. I think it was out of respect and not pity. Of course my MIL is asking when the sibling will be born now and admitted she and her friends lit all sorts of candles and prayed for me over the years. The friends? REALLY? Gawd.

    Far too may strangers or rather extended co-workers whom I saw maybe once or twice a year asked very bluntly and usually followed with a, “WHY NOT?!” after asking if I had kids…yet. It was really upsetting. One woman was hell. Absolute hell.

    What would I prefer? The quiet candle lighter MIL with her friends or the obnoxious once in awhile person…hmmmm….I choose neither but if I had to pick, it would be the latter. I can respond with sass to a person I am not emotionally attached to. Whereas my family will worry about me if I lose it on them.

    I think that is what I would choose? Not an easy one, is it?

    Sharon, btw, thanks for writing a response. Your blog is really great and I look forward to where you are going in your life. I do.

    Beth

  • Dehopkins

    I would definitely rather not have my family ask. The close ones know about our situation (parents and siblings and a few close friends) and they know we are getting opinions and gathering our options. But I have enough internal pressure every time I look at the calendar or really let myself think about it. So I don’t need “pressure” from them in the form of questions. And they are very respectful of it. If I bring it up, they will talk. Otherwise they stay quiet about it. To me that is much much better than having to go over every doctor’s appt in detail. They know when there is something to tell, we will tell.

  • http://www.pickupmytree.com/ Santa Claus

    Me, El Kabong, Terry C., or the mad Eagles fan?

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